Association of retinoblastoma mutation status and function with efficacy of immune checkpoint blockade in small-cell lung cancer

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) plus chemotherapy is approved for the treatment of extensive stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). Although specific genomic abnormalities are associated with resistance to ICB in non-SCLC, no genomic abnormality has been found in association with resistance to ICB in SCLC. A retrospective cohort study with validation in the prospective CheckMate 032 cohort found that SCLC patients with RB1 wildtype status or lower RB1 loss-of-function signature scores by transcriptomics had better outcomes with immune checkpoint blockade monotherapy. The authors conclude that next-generation sequencing to determine RB1 status mya be helpful to predict outcomes with ICB for SCLC.